I'm not sure if this counts as a lifer or not. A few years ago I looked over the side of a very large oceanic ferry boat and saw a group of apparently small, short-winged "seabirds" flying quickly along. I guessed they were Common Diving-Petrels, and I think I put it on my bird list with an asterisk.

Well, on January first I went on a pelagic birding trip in the Hauraki Gulf of New Zealand and finally got a good look at a definite Common Diving-Petrel -

Heard a report of some gulls I haven't seen down in Cleveland. Ended up being a 6 species day - 4 regular species (Herring, Ring-billed, Boneparte's and Great Black-backed) and 2 lifers (Thayer's and Iceland). Not too often I have a two lifer day in Ohio!

I should probably just wait awhile and rack up a few lifers before posting, but I really don't expect to keep finding life birds on a regular basis. Regardless, a lunchtime trek today took us to a bunch of Common Redpolls, which contained my lifer Hoary Redpoll!

Great find on the Razorbills. Apparently there has been a huge push of this species into Florida and around into the Gulf. Texas birders have been anxiously searching since we still have no Alcids on our state list.

I picked up a few lifers last week at Miranda Shorebird Center on the Firth of Thames in New Zealand.

I will post photos next week, but for now my lifers were:

Wrybill - this was the reason to go to Miranda. This endemic and very bizarre shorebird only lives in NZ.

Greater Sand Plover - a bonus bird at Miranda. Rare there but we saw one very close......which I forgot to photograph.

Shore Plover - this is certainly the coolest of my lifers since this bird is one of the harder shorebirds to get in the world due to its tiny range. I'm not sure how/why this individual had wandered to Miranda, but I'll take it since I wouldn't go to its natural range to get it.
Here's my best photo. No,..not the bird Pied Stilts in the foreground, the dot back by the clump of grass in the back.
Of course, the previous day it was right next to the photo blind about 20 feet away in good light.

Flammulated Owl yesterday was sort of a lifer. I had found one before in a mist net and banded it, but never actually saw a "free" one before.

I snapped this photo at ISO 16000 (yes, ISO 16K!) as the owl hopped down onto a limb near me in the almost pitch black. I could only make out its silhouette, but the camera managed to get quite a bit of detail considering there was no flash, no flashlights, no nothing!

I went to our local Botanical Garden's today to look for a hummer that has been around and the 'experts' believe to be an Allen's -

While there, we found out there was a Calliope being seen as well (not a lifer, but only my second and a damn good bird for central Texas) -

With all the local birders stumbling around, someone spotted an empid which we staked out and it turned out to be our second lifer of the day - Hammond's Flycatcher! (After I took these lousy photos and headed home, the bird apparently came out, sat on a branch at face level a few feet from other photographers in the bright sun. )

Not very often I get two lifers in one day in my home state, let alone home town!

Thx Curtis. What is the magic nr in US or in your state? Over here in Sweden we have 300 as the nr. But the guy who is the MAN have seen 453 sp in Sweden and he is nr 1. Total birds in Sweden is 503.
/Freddy

It keeps getting harder. At this point, I probably couldn't get more that 2 new birds that breed in any of the continental US states.
I'm pretty happy if I get one new ABA bird a year at this point, and most of those I have to chase. If it's within 800 miles or so, I'll consider it.

Curtis Hart wrote:I'm currently at 483 in the ABA. I'll enjoy getting to 500, but 600 and 700 are very accomplishable.

You are pretty close to 500, Curtis. Could manage the difference sticking around Michigan?

chrish wrote:I'm over 500 in the ABA (543), but 600 is going to be tough.

Chris, I am surprised your ABA list isn't higher, but I guess you have said you normally head south or to other countries. Seriously, you should consider a May trip up to Ohio. In a week (or less) you could make a killing on neo-tropical migrants, ducks and some pretty sweet herps. Or come fly up in the winter for some gull action. I got 6 species of gulls today and could have gone 7 or 8 with a little more effort.

Andy Avram wrote:Chris, I am surprised your ABA list isn't higher, but I guess you have said you normally head south or to other countries. Seriously, you should consider a May trip up to Ohio. In a week (or less) you could make a killing on neo-tropical migrants, ducks and some pretty sweet herps. Or come fly up in the winter for some gull action. I got 6 species of gulls today and could have gone 7 or 8 with a little more effort.
Andy

nightdriver wrote:I think the time between 500 and 600 went faster than 400 to 500. All it takes is a few well placed trips. You need to come out and do some Pacific pelagics Chris.
-nightdriver

I think my pace has accelerated in the last 100 or so as well because you become more selective and focused and tend to chase rarities more.

There are only 10 of the 464 species that normally occur in Texas that would be lifers for me, so I guess I need to get out of the state. (Lesser Prairie-Chicken, Audubon's Shearwater, Spotted Owl, Eastern Whip-poor-will, Alder Flycatcher, Northern Shrike, Smith's Longspur, Bachman's Sparrow, Baird's Sparrow, Henslow's Sparrow). Alder Flycatcher is probably "ungettable" in Texas because they don't call while they are migrating through here so they can't be safely identified.

Actually, my big ABA holes are
- Rocky Mountain endemics
- Pacific Coast endemics
- Boreal stuff (owls, finches, ptarmigans, etc)
- pelagics, although I could do better on the East coast than the west since I have a number of the Pacific species already.

But for the money I would spend getting all those birds, I could go to New Guinea or Cameroon and get 300 new birds.

Andy, I could probably get to 500 in MI, but I would rather not spend the gas $ needed to do that right now. I live in just about the worst place birding wise in MI. I'm as far from a great lake as you can get and there is a lot more agriculture than forest here. I normally don't work in MI, so I'll probably pick up a few in the next field season.

Chis, that Audubon's Shearwater shouldn't be that tough. I saw them on the Pelagic trip, summer of '11 and this fall while sailing about 40 miles out. I guess it's just getting out there.

My world total is 1126, which is low, because I've been SUPER lazy some times, and also couldn't afford the field guide once (Birds of Wallacea).

One of the most memorable was the Andean Pygmy owl, I got a really good look at it but had no camera.

A bunch of birds I have no idea what the IDs are. Here are some of the ones that I do know that come to mind right now.

A bunch of hummingbirds! The ones I do have IDs for are...
Violet-tailed Sylph (Aglaiocercus coelestis), a really beautiful hummer that it was a pleasure to see and photograph.
Purple-bibbed Whitetip (Urosticte benjamini)
Andean Emerald (Amazilia franciae)
Black-tailed Trainbearer (Lesbia victoriae)
a few others who I haven't IDed yet

Andean Guan
Crimson-mantled Woodpecker (Colaptes rivolii)

And oh yeah I saw these birds flying about everyday and on occasion they would come closer...
Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus)

I saw a Greater Scaup at Lake Hudson a week or so ago and picked up a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet at Anzulduas County Park this morning. I also saw a Yellow-headed Parrot this morning. I haven't decided if I'll count that one or not yet.

Curtis Hart wrote:picked up a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet at Anzulduas County Park this morning. I also saw a Yellow-headed Parrot this morning. I have decided if I'll count that one or not yet.
I picked up an Elf Owl at Bensten Rio Grande 3/21/2013.

Congrats on the Tyrannulet. I had been down to the valley many dozens of times over 20 years before I finally got that little bugger.

Parrots in the valley are a pain. The only ones I have counted are the flocks of Green Parakeets and Red-headed Parrots which are pretty predictable. Yellow-headed is interesting though.....they do still occur in the Tamaulipan Scrub just a few hours south of the border.

chrish wrote:Congrats on the Tyrannulet. I had been down to the valley many dozens of times over 20 years before I finally got that little bugger.

Thanks. I heard another one at Bensten Rio Grande this morning, but didn't take the time to track it down. It was really tough to find the first one, even after I heard it.

chrish wrote:Parrots in the valley are a pain. The only ones I have counted are the flocks of Green Parakeets and Red-headed Parrots which are pretty predictable. Yellow-headed is interesting though.....they do still occur in the Tamaulipan Scrub just a few hours south of the border.

A woman I met out bird watching that morning said that Yellow-headeds are countable, but I have so far been unsuccessful at finding any info about their status in the valley online.

Curtis Hart wrote:I saw a Greater Scaup at Lake Hudson a week or so ago and picked up a Northern Beardless Tyrannulet at Anzulduas County Park this morning. I also saw a Yellow-headed Parrot this morning. I haven't decided if I'll count that one or not yet.
I picked up an Elf Owl at Bensten Rio Grande 3/21/2013.

I am surprised you haven't seen Greater Scaup before! At this point I am only a handful of ducks away from finishing them off for the ABA I need to head WAY north to Alaska and way south to Florida or by you in Texas.

You have gotten some pretty choice birds lately, but looking at the ABA website, which goes of AOU, and I don't see Yellow-headed Parrot on the list, thus meaning it isn't "countable". Of course that all could change in a few years, but personally I don't get as excited as some people about now non-native species added to the list.

Today or tomorrow I go after Little Gull! Flocks of them on Lake Erie but in PA, which isn't too far from me.

Andy Avram wrote:You have gotten some pretty choice birds lately, but looking at the ABA website, which goes of AOU, and I don't see Yellow-headed Parrot on the list, thus meaning it isn't "countable". Of course that all could change in a few years, but personally I don't get as excited as some people about now non-native species added to the list.

I agree, I haven't added any of the valley parrots even though I see them often when I'm here. I was told that there is a possibility that the Yellow-headeds may be a natural migrant. Looking into it further, this does not seem to be the case. I don't always follow the ABA lists though, I don'y think they allow CA Condors, but I count that one.

I'm sure I had seen Greater Scaup before, just not well enough for me to count.

Added Crimson-collared Grosbeak on Friday, and Kemp's Ridley on Saturday. Dipped on a Zone-tailed because I left a Hawk Watch to go looking for a bobcat.

Curtis Hart wrote:My world total is 1126, which is low, because I've been SUPER lazy some times, and also couldn't afford the field guide once (Birds of Wallacea).

Couldn't afford the field guide?? Sheesh......back when I was a boy....

When I was an undergrad in the 1980s, my parents lived in Indonesia. I spent a lot of time birding in Java, East Kalimantan, Bali and other areas of Indonesia. The frustrating thing was that there was no field guide that covered the area. I had an 20+ year old guide to Borneo (Smythies), a bird guide to the Phillippines that was about that old and a slightly newer field guide to the birds of Southeast Asia. But the SEA field guide didn't cover any of Indonesia. So I plodded along happily half-guessing what birds might be based on the pictures I could find in my books. (Imagine birding in the US where the only field guides you had access to were 20 year old guides to Alaska and Costa Rica with black and white plates and many birds not even illustrated, just described).

Then I found a checklist of the birds of Java and Bali and compared it to my list and found out that a lot of the birds I thought I had seen didn't occur there and that there were a lot of endemic birds to the area. I found myself having to "guess" what a bird would look like based on its Common or Scientific name. I probably took 100 birds off my birdlist. Fortunately, I did sometimes keep good notes with descriptions of new or interesting birds and did manage to look up a few after new guides were published. But I suspect that at least 75% of the birds I saw in Java, Sulawesi, and even Borneo I had to dismiss as 'not in the book' or 'similar to x' or 'some sort of Barbet or Prinia or Sunbird or Tailorbird, etc.. ' Truth be told, I got so frustrated many times I would just look at a bird, shrug and move on.

Net effect - Over several years, I probably spent months birding around various places in Indonesia at all times of year and I have a total of 71 birds on my birdlist from there , and probably a third of those are widespread old world species like shorebirds, raptors, etc. that were identifiable. That number should probably be 10x that high. I spent two weeks in Sulawesi where I added 3 birds to my birdlist! And when you add in birds lost to my $25 binoculars.....

It sucked and was very frustrating, but at least I saw Kalimantan before all the Palm Oil plantations and logging destroyed it.

The herps were many times worse because I probably only identified 5% of what I saw.

chrish wrote:Couldn't afford the field guide?? Sheesh......back when I was a boy....

Well, part of it was that I expected to find it in Asia for a fraction of the price of the internet. I could not find a copy anywhere in Asia, including Singapore. Either way it would have been $200+.

Not a lifer, but added Common Black Hawk for the ABA, Santa Ana NWR Hawk Watch.

EDIT: I returned to the Santa Ana NWR hawk watch today and learned that the Common Black Hawk record had not been accepted by whoever proofs hawk watch data due to lack of a picture. We all agreed that the sighting was good enough for our own purposes though.

So I'm going through some old photos from 2006, looking for a specific roadkill photo when I come across this photo -

and I saw that it wasn't labeled so I think "I'm not sure which species I finally decided this was..." So I check my Mexican bird book and figure out it is a Mountain (Nothern) Pygmy-Owl.
Just on a whim, I check my birdlist for that date to see what I had called it before and ......it isn't on there. No birds from that date are on there.

So, I got a lifer that I had forgotten about years ago. Now I have to remember what else I saw up there that I might have forgotten to count!

I'll finish my drive home tomorrow or the next day. Over the last two weeks I started in Mcallan, Texas spent a week in Big Bend NP, then on to Guadelupe Mountains NP, then north to Omaha NE. Here are the lifers I saw.

My birding software crashed and I can't restore it until I get home. It's all backed up, but I'm not sure of my exact total. I think I'm at about 505. Thanks to everyone that gave me advice, especially ChrisH.

Curtis Hart wrote:I'll finish my drive home tomorrow or the next day. Over the last two weeks I started in Mcallan, Texas spent a week in Big Bend NP, then on to Guadelupe Mountains NP, then north to Omaha NE. Here are the lifers I saw.

My birding software crashed and I can't restore it until I get home. It's all backed up, but I'm not sure of my exact total. I think I'm at about 505. Thanks to everyone that gave me advice, especially ChrisH.

Glad you got the requisite number. The problem is now that you are at 500, 600 is a long way off!

You got two birds that I don't have - Virginia's Warbler and Mexican Whip-poorwill. I've seen both but didn't count either sighting.

Interesting that there were still geese at Balmorrhea. No Ross's among the snows? They are pretty common there if there are any white geese.

Congrats to Curtis for the recent trip of lifers.
I'm currently working as a King Rail technician at Mackay Island NWR on Knotts Island, NC. The birding and herping here is phenomenal. I have seen 101 species of birds in 3 weeks time on 8,000 acres!
New lifers:
Snow Goose (incl. Blue Morph)
Tundra Swan
American Black Duck
Northern Pintail
King Rail
Whimbrel
Dark-eyed Junco
Great Crested Flycatcher
Purple Sandpiper (VA Beach)
Bonaparte's Gull (VA Beach)

I am thinking about one of those pelagics trips too! Coordinating a paycheck, good weather and a day off will be a challenge though. I have nothing on my list for pelagics unless Northern Gannets count.

chrish wrote:
You got two birds that I don't have - Virginia's Warbler and Mexican Whip-poorwill. I've seen both but didn't count either sighting.

Why didn't you count those two?

The Mexican Whip-poor-will (and a Whiskered Screech-Owl) were both calling along side a road at night in the Chiricahuas. We got out of the car and listened and called back as best we could. We had our flashlights ready, but even though both species got within 20 feet of us, we could never spot them. We did see a Caprimulgid silhouette fly from a limb where we had heard the Whip calling, but we never really "saw" it. (We saw the Screech-Owl fly over after calling as well, but didn't feel like we had "seen" it either.)

The Virginia's Warbler was among a warbler flock along the road in the Davis Mts. one May day. I saw it for two seconds with binos, but didn't get a good confirming look. I wasn't sure what I had seen but VIWA was the best match I could make. I figured I would have seen another one by now!

Gotten a few more here at Mackay Island NWR where I'm working on King Rails:
King Rail (duh)
Clapper Rail
Virginia Rail
Black Rail (possibly, could use a vocalization to confirm)
Blackpoll Warbler
Summer Tanager
Black-necked Stilt
Semipalmated Sandpiper
Bobolink

I'll decorate my post with a photo of the endangered Yellow-shouldered Blackbird. Due to aggressive conservation efforts, there are now around 2500 of these birds restricted to a small corner of the island of Puerto Rico. This individual was photographed at the spot that most birders see this bird - in a narrow alley between a hardware store and a soccer field eating stale bread at a feeder.